


Managing Hope and Expectations

by peacefulboo



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:40:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3775843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefulboo/pseuds/peacefulboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol knows she was gone too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Managing Hope and Expectations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



“Another year, eh?” Jessica mumbles into Carol’s neck. It feels like she just got back from a year in space - it had been only been six months - and Carol’s already turning around to explore the galaxy again. 

“Maybe a little longer. They need me to head a little further out than normal. There’s a hole out there growing bigger that they need checked out sooner rather than later.” Carol shrugs and pulls away from Jessica. 

“And it has to be you, of course,” Jessica replies fondly. They both know the truth, though. There are a handful of others who could take on the scouting mission - hell, there are robots that could probably do a decent job - but that’s not the point. Carol’s restless already. 

And it breaks Jessica’s heart a little. ‘Cause she loves this woman so fucking much, and Carol loves space. She loves adventure and adrenalin and damn it all if she’s not a runner. 

Carol turns to grab her newly packed jump bag and heads toward the door. 

Jessica inhales sharply as she watches her walk away and just can’t help herself from what she does next. 

“Carol. Just…hold up,” she chokes out and takes the few steps toward Carol. And then slowly, but boldly, she reaches up and takes her face in her hands and pulls her down into a firm kiss. Carol stays still beneath her hands for a few beats but allows Jess to deepen the kiss a touch. It’s hot and wet and Jess pours every ounce of feeling, all the love and hurt and joy and comfort she can into that kiss before slowly pulling away and smiling up at her friend. 

“Okay,” is all Carol says in response, and Jessica laughs. 

“I love you, and you love me and it might be different for both of us but I just would really like it if my friend would come back from whatever that fucking hole is in space so we can discuss the possibility of doing that again.”

“Jess, I’m...” Carol trails off with a sad smile. 

Not sure. Straight. Leaving. Blindsided. Happy. It could be any of those, Jessica knows. 

“I know. Just come back. You’re my best friend. Don’t leave me with only Natasha and Bobbi and fucking Clint for company forever,” Jessica jokes, hoping to release Carol with a slightly more lighthearted parting than a surprise kiss goodbye and declaration of love. 

“You have the worst taste,” Carol tells her pointedly. 

“Very fucking aware,” Jessica replies with a crooked smirk. Very, very fucking aware. “Go. Kick the black hole’s ass.”

“It’s not a black hole,” Carol starts, but then shakes her head. She does have to leave. 

“Kick the ass of the blank spot in space,” Jess tells her with an eye roll. 

And then Carol is gone. 

***

“You’re late,” Jess mumbles as Carol slips quietly into the room, letting the door click softly shut behind her. 

Carol smiles fondly down at her, slips her shoes and jacket off, then slides into the bed behind Jessica, wrapping her arms around her and dropping a light peck on her shoulder. 

“I am,” Carol replies into her hair. 

The truth is she’s three years late. Space will do that to you sometimes. Time shifts and dilates and collapses when you’re out there. People - peoples, really - need her and the longer she’s away from Earth, the less she feels tethered here. So when Steve offered to send someone to relieve her after a year, she told him she would stay on and then another year slipped by, and another, and it all felt like just a moment had passed. 

In the end, she’s deep enough into space that she doesn’t get Steve’s message for three months. 

Jessica is asleep again before Carol can apologize or explain, so Carol just holds her tight and catalogues the differences in her friend. Her hair is short, which will take a little getting used to. She’s thinner than she used to be, her muscle mass decreased and shifted. Still her skin is soft and her hair is shiny and she doesn’t seem unhealthy, just different. 

But she smells the same, all cinnamon and sugar with a hint of electricity lingering beneath. 

Carol falls asleep still in her clothes, wrapped around this woman that she loves and missed so much and she wonders how she could have left her behind for so damn long. 

***

Jessica wakes in the middle of the night, which happens more often than not these days. It’s hot, hotter than normal, and she panics for just a moment when she feels the weight of someone at her back and the strong arm holding her. The panic only lasts a second as her mind clears and she remembers who it is in bed with her. 

She’s missed her. A lot. It’s been a hard year without her here. She’s missed the way Carol can make everything seem surmountable, how nothing gets her down for long, even when she needs to stay the fuck down. 

Jess doesn’t begrudge her friend her need for space. She gets it completely. But she still feels abandoned. She’s tried not to, tried to tell herself it’s not about her, and that it never was. But there’s still a part of her that feels like Carol left _her_ and resents the hell out of it. And that’s the part that prompts her to slip out of bed and head into the kitchen for a glass of water and some space of her own. 

The truth is, in the midst of some of her hardest hours over the last six months, she had wanted Carol with her. She had needed her bravado and courage and fucking moxy. Or at least she had thought she had needed that. 

Instead it was a stoic Natasha and a matured, but still snarky Kate who were with her for most of her illness and, along with the dogged, tireless work of Hank, it was enough. She survived. It’s been three months since Hank had worked his science-magic and eradicated the weird-ass alien virus that was killing her and the truth is, she’s come to learn that she doesn’t need Carol anymore. She has other people now. People she can trust and rely on and, in the case of Kate, get a pizza and cuddle with while watching endless shows and movies on Netflix that she’d missed while saving the world. 

And she’s finally, finally figured out that she’s enough. In herself, she’s enough. 

But that doesn’t mean that when Carol walks slowly into her living room, hair mussed and clothes wrinkled beyond the telling, Jessica doesn’t just want to grab onto her and never, ever let go. 

“I like the hair,” Carol tells her with a sleepy smile. It sounds sincere. 

“Thanks. It’s taking forever to grow out and I’m thinking of taking a page out of Maria or Daisy’s book and just keeping it this short,” she replies, and then changes the subject. “I was going to make some tea, do you want some?”

“Sure,” Carol answers as she moves to sit at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. 

Jess is happy to have something to do with her hands and realizes with a start that she’s fucking nervous. Which is ridiculous. She not the one who should be nervous. 

“You look good, too,” she tells Carol, because even sleepy and rumpled, Carol looks amazing. Her eyes are bright and her skin seems to be glowing. “Space was good to you.”

“It was fun. Maybe a little addictive,” Carol says, shrugging. 

Jess just nods in response and continues to make the tea. The silence that stretches out is less awkward than it could be but it’s far from comfortable. When the tea is ready, Jessica hands Carol her cup and makes her way out onto the balcony to watch the sunrise. She doesn’t ask Carol to join her, but is glad when she follows her out. It’s summer and warm enough that she doesn’t need a jacket or shoes and Jessica welcomes the light breeze that she knows will be gone by the time the sun is fully up. 

“I missed this view.” Carol takes a sip of her tea as she looks over the city sprawling out around them. The sun is just peeking up over the horizon, chasing away the darkness as day begins to break. 

“I’m not sure I believe that. You aren’t really the missing type, Carol,” Jessica replies. Carol’s told her that before. That she doesn’t have the gene for missing people or things. That she only feels that sense of longing for things she hasn’t known already. 

Carol just shrugs and takes another sip of her tea. 

***

Carol knows she’s lying as soon as it leaves her mouth. She didn’t miss the view. Not when she was in space. She didn’t miss anything when she was out there. Even during the long stretches of silence and darkness when it was just her and her ship, waiting for another challenge to pop up, she didn’t miss New York or Earth. 

But she did miss Jessica. Not often, and not for long. She didn’t allow herself to fall into that hole when there was so much else that needed to be done. But sometimes when Gamora would say something a certain way, or when someone from a new-to-her planet would stand a certain way, or when she would smell a hint of electricity on the air, she’d get this twinge in her gut and miss this woman. 

She knows, especially now as she’s sitting next to Jess, sipping tea on her balcony and watching her friend watch the sunrise, she knows that she should have come home sooner. 

And she wonders why she didn’t. 

***

 

“So when do you go back?” Jess asks later that evening as they’re lounging on the couch and not watching whatever HGTV show is currently on the tv. 

“I’m not,” she replies, looking at Jessica as if her next word would be “Duh” if they were still fourteen. 

“That’s stupid!” Jessica sits up so she can look directly at Carol. And it is stupid. Carol belongs in god damned space. 

“That’s not exactly the reaction I was expecting,” Carol replies, her brow furrowed in confusion, the underlying hurt obvious. 

Jess takes a second to take a cleansing breath and pushes down the urge to roll her eyes. “I know that given everything that’s happened over the last year, you probably think I want to hold onto you and never let you leave my sight. And there’s definitely a part of me that absolutely wants to do that. But I love you Carol. I do. Despite everything, I love every fucking inch of you and you being gone for that long, being gone when I needed you, it fucking broke my heart.” 

Jessica pauses and lets that settle in. Because it’s the truth. And Carol needs to know that. She watches as Carol swallows and closes her eyes for a few moments. And then Jess smiles sadly at her when Carol turns to look her in the eye and nods for her to continue. So she does.

“But I figured out that I can’t put that on you. It’s not your fault that you don’t love me that way and that I’m not yours to stay for. It’s no one’s fault, Carol, certainly not yours,” Jess tells her even as she takes Carol’s hand and press a kiss to the palm. Carol’s fingers curl slightly in and it reminds Jess of one of those flowers that get protective when touched. “I love you because of who you are, not who you can be to me,” she concludes, punctuating her statement with a sharp nod of her head, and releasing Carol’s hand. 

“And if you’re wrong?” Carol asks, looking down at her hand for a second before looking at Jessica again. 

“About what?”

“About you not being mine to stay for?” 

Well, that would be something, wouldn’t it, Jess thinks. 

“Am I, though? Really? Am I enough to make you happy here on Earth when the universe is so fucking huge and you have the ability to explore so much of it?” Jessica ask. 

“I didn’t miss anything when I was out there. I didn’t miss anything or anyone except you,” Carol tells her honestly. 

“Oh.” Jess is a little surprised by that. 

“God, Jess, I get it. I do get why that would surprise you cause I’m basically the biggest asshole ever. I am. But fuck, how do you not know?” This time Carol grabs Jessica’s hand and kisses the back of it. “You’re my favorite person in entire universe.”

Jessica can feel the way that the smile blossoms on her face and for just one second she lets go of all of the insecurities and doubts and pragmatic cynicism and just basks in that one, simple statement. The way Carol slowly raises her hand to cup her face only makes her smile grow and Jess can’t help but giggle as Carol kisses her, smile against smile, teeth against lips, and little puffs of breath into each other’s mouth as Jess tries to contain her giddy giggles. 

“I’m trying to kiss you,” Carol says, a little exasperated when Jessica can’t seem to stop her laughter from bubbling up. 

“I know. Sorry! I can’t seem to stop,” Jess tells her, eyes wide and bright as she bites down on her lip. Jessica is not a shy lover, never really has been. But something about Carol’s determination in this moment has her feeling like an idiot 15-year-old at her first school dance. 

Carol pulls back for a second and just peers at her for a moment, like she’s trying to figure Jessica out. Jess can see the moment that a lightbulb goes off in Carol’s head and her breath hitches when Carol leans back in, this time bypassing her mouth to drag her lips and teeth along the side of Jessica’s neck. It’s Carol’s turn to chuckle at the way Jessica’s giggles quiet and she shivers instead. She takes her time, placing light pecks along the column of Jessica’s throat, and then back to her lips. The kiss is deep and wet and there’s no laughter this time.

The kiss lasts forever and ever and Jessica gets lost in the taste and feel of this dream she’s had for way longer than she wants to admit. They break to breathe only to go back in for another and another and another, until Jess is finally aware enough to feel Carol’s hands roaming under her camisole and pulls away to remove it completely. She reaches for the hem of Carol’s shirt and pulls it up and over her head. 

She’s not ashamed to say she goes straight for the boobs. Carol’s breasts are fantastic and Jess has been half in love with them since they first met each other, so she takes half a moment to take them in before letting her lips take over. An open mouthed kiss to the top of one, a little lick of the nipple of the other and a long, gentle drag of teeth along the underside of the first. She doesn’t stay in one spot for long, preferring to switch it up regularly before starting at the beginning again. 

She barely notices when Carol’s hands get buried in her hair and she’s gently pulled back up to her mouth. The kiss for a few moments, the smile back on Jessica’s face, even as she takes note of the way Carol is slowing it all down. 

“We’ve got time, Jess,” Carol tells her with a raised eyebrow and sly grin, even as she slides her hand down the front of Jessica’s underwear, boldly sliding her fingers along Jessica’s cunt and eliciting a shudder and sigh from Jess. 

Jessica’s just going to have to trust her about having time. 

***

 

A year and three months. That’s how long Jessica has her friend and lover with her before she has to say goodbye again. It’s a good year, full of heat and sweetness and love, love, love. But she can feel the pull of space on Carol’s blood even before Carol does. 

It’s in the way she gets antsy and stares at the stars. In the way she takes an alarming number of trips up into orbit without her helmet on, despite how fucking stupid and dangerous and damaging that probably is in the long run. 

Carol isn’t cruel and when she’s with Jess, she’s mostly _with_ her. But Jess knew from the beginning that she couldn’t be the one to keep her tethered to this dirt. 

Carol doesn’t give a timeline this time. But she does promise to be back, though they both know that life is hard and fragile, even for indestructable bodies. There’s always something bigger or stronger than you, and promising to come back may prove to be an empty platitude this time. 

“Don’t wait for me,” Carol tells her, as she wraps her arms around her shoulders. They’ve discussed it and agreed that they’re both free to see other people. But that’s not really what she means. Or it’s not only what she means. 

“I won’t,” Jessica assures her. And it is an assurance. Carol can’t be worrying about her any more than Jessica should be worrying about Carol. They’ve agreed that they have to deal with what’s in front of them. Be it all powerful overlords, kittens in trees, or potential lovers, life is better when it’s lived in the now. If they both live long enough to see each other again, that’s a potential wrinkle they’ll gladly face together. 

“You are loved, Jessica Drew,” Carol tells her before dropping a kiss on the crown of her head. 

“You are too, Carol Danvers.” Jessica kisses her square on the lips one more time before releasing you. “Don’t get dead.”

“I’m immortal. Hasn’t anyone told you that?” Carol replies as she heads for the door. 

“You keep saying that, but I’ll believe it when you don’t get dead,” Jessica replies with a laugh. Then she sobers and says, “Be safe.” 

“Will do. Don’t get any mutant viruses while I’m gone this time,” Carol retorts. 

“I’ll do my best,” Jessica replies.

And just like that, Carol slips out of her life once again. This time, Jessica’s found her peace with it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a doozy to write but in the end I'm fairly happy with it! Hope y'all enjoy. Especially geckoholic. You're prompts were so much fun and it took me forever to decide on one.


End file.
